The Green Screen Climate Justice and Digital Rights Coalition is a group of funders and practitioners looking to build bridges across the digital rights and climate justice movements. The aim of the Coalition is to be a catalyst in making visible the climate implications of technology by supporting emerging on-the-ground work, building networks, and embedding the issue as an area within philanthropy.
Beginning earnestly in spring 2021, the coalition consists of Ariadne, Ford Foundation, Internet Society Foundation, Mozilla Foundation, Green Web Foundation (us!), critical infrastructure lab, and Stiftung Mercator. The coalition is part of a broader network of organizations and individuals around the world working on these issues.
The Coalition have just launched their new Catalyst Fund.
What is the Catalyst fund?
The Green Screen Catalyst Fund is one of the first explicit attempts to invest and support practitioners at the intersection of climate justice and digital rights.
The Fund has been built to catalyze the ideas of individuals, organizations, and networks on the specific issues around climate justice and digital rights. By catalyze, we mean support important conversations, projects, and action at the intersection with the hope that it will transform the way technology is built, how communities organize, and how we understand the interdependency between climate justice and technology.
This includes, but is not limited to:
- topics on the environmental impacts of internet infrastructures and digital technologies,
- platform accountability, and the environmental impact of tracking and the AdTech industry,
- climate mis- and dis-information,
- research projects that apply a social justice lens to internet infrastructure research,
- false and misleading climate solutions,
- research and prototyping ideas for internet infrastructures and new technologies that are less environmentally damaging, such as slow internet, non-extractivist digital technologies, feminist and decolonial technologies,
- digital and border surveillance economies and technologies for digital control,
- and extractivism and mega-projects.
What’s on offer?
The Catalyst Fund seeks to support proposals addressing a range of issues and a range of different scopes. The grant period will be no longer than one year and with a total grant amount between $10k and $40k with three tiers:
SPARK
- 10.000 USD
- Individuals, collectives, networks and organizations
- Smaller and earlier-stage ideas
SEED
- 20.000 USD
- Organizations, collectives, networks and collaborations
- Earlier-stage and more experimental projects
BUILD
- 40.000 USD
- Organizations and collaborations between groups and organizations
- Projects that already have some momentum and an engaged community
Is Fund is looking for roughly 12 grantees with a mix of the three tiers. The funding timeline will start in January 2024 and end January 2025. There is some flexibility on this timeline that could be discussed with each grantee on an individual basis.
Timeline
- Oct 10 – Call for Proposals launches
- Nov 15 – Concept Notes phase closes
- Mid December – Invitations for Full Proposals
- Jan 10 – Full Proposals due
- January – Final decision
More information and application form
Please note that whilst we are one of the co-initiators of the Coalition and the Fund, we are not handling applications to the Fund directly, nor are we in a position to advise on applications.
The Coalition have put together a great web page giving loads of information on the process, who should apply and the criteria for applications. They are also running Q&A sessions to answer any questions you might have.
